The law is just fine, thanks
Ford has power to dispute one judge’s ruling
The frantic effort instigated by Toronto council and its allies to avoid being downsized gives you a pretty good idea why Premier Doug Ford made it a point not to advertise his plans.
As has been amply noted, the province has the power to chop seats from the council if it wants. The question has been the timing and process: opponents insist the premier should have delayed the order to allow for consultation with municipal officials. Why push it through on short notice, they ask. Why not wait until the next vote, four years down the road?
The answer to that is clear in the judicial and political hysteria they’ve so quickly conjured up to block the change. Even while acknowledging there’s very little chance of success, opponents are retaining every underemployed lawyer they can find, seeking out judges and chasing any venue open to appeal, all while complaining that “uncertainty” — which they are doing their best to fuel — is undermining the city’s ability to stage a safe election.
Toronto council was never going to accede to its own reduction without a fight. No expense or effort would be spared in councillors’ determination to protect their little patch of turf, especially among the ardent collection of left-wingers who see themselves as all that stands against the stormtroopers of right-wing extremism.
The fact so much obfuscation has been manufactured in so short a time explains Ford’s hurry.
Imagine what could have been achieved if the full forces of selfpreservation had been given four years to operate their crusade.
Plenty of time to bog down the province in the sort of obstructionist gridlock that has so effectively made it impossible for Canada to build a pipeline anywhere it might do some good. If you want to know what organized zealotry can accomplish when given a chance, just ask Justin Trudeau or Rachel Notley.
The first thought Mayor John Tory had when he heard of the plan was to get more lawyers involved. A trio of retired politicians was quickly conjured up — former prime minister Jean Chrétien and former premiers Roy Romanow and Bill Davis — to decry the move, only to be countered by three others — former premiers Christy Clark, Brad Wall and Jean Charest — who couldn’t find much to complain about. Another former prime minister, Brian Mulroney, admitted he’d never been fond of the notwithstanding clause, a confession seized on as critical given that Mulroney’s daughter Caroline is Ontario’s attorney general, and a key player in the controversy. The former PM was careful not to disparage his own flesh and blood, but the moment may still go down in history as the only time Canadian “progressives” had anything good to say about Brian Mulroney.
When Ford called a rare weekend sitting to hurry through the legislation — with Toronto’s city clerk warning that every moment of delay made organizing the election more difficult — a pack of noisy protesters conveniently turned up to shout insults from the public galleries. Incensed at what they termed Ford’s use of “the nuclear option” in invoking the notwithstanding clause, council members came up with a spacebased alien death ray of their own, appealing to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to use an even more rarely accessed weapon enabling him to overrule provincial legislation. Good luck on that: a year out from a federal election, and with Donald Trump, John Horgan and Scott Moe already making his life miserable, all he needs is to wade into a controversy in the country’s most populous pool of voters.
Politicians newly arrived in office have a limited time to get anything done. You can ask Trudeau about that reality as well — the prime minister has seen his agenda fade to black as he struggles with the unexpected and the unpredictable. Ford’s critics say he should have made his intentions clear during the spring election, an opportunity Mayor Tory has indicated he’d have used to hold a referendum.
Oddly, no one recalls a referendum being held when council chose to tack on three extra seats and alter the boundaries of all but a handful of the existing wards two years ago. That decision was based on the recommendation of outside consultants, not the voters of Ontario, and was opposed by Tory. “I don’t think we need more politicians at city hall,” he said at the time.
The results of a referendum wouldn’t be difficult to predict. The downtown Toronto neighbourhoods that are most incensed at Ford were swept by the New Democrats in June. They could be counted on to reject anything he proposed, up to and including raising his hand to go to the men’s room. Outside the city’s boundaries, the wave of blue that made Ford premier has no reason to care much about the big, bloated monolith that turns Toronto council meetings into marathon talking shops, which can last days at a time without achieving much. Public exhaustion at the city sucking up so much of the air of public discourse was a big reason Ford was elected in the first place.
If you’ve read more than two opinions on this matter you’ll have been told that “the rule of law” is in danger. It’s not. You can visit Ontario next week or next year and all the usual laws will apply. Doug Ford is disputing one ruling by one judge, because he believes he’s right and the judge overreached. He’s not slapping judges in irons or appointing nephews to the bench. What he is making clear is that courts should be careful about the limits of their powers, just as politicians must. And there are limits, despite what you might hear.
If there were even a moderate chance the premier’s plan could be thwarted, the current uproar might have cause to proceed. But there’s little evidence that’s the case: Ford has the power, the notwithstanding clause is part of the law and Trudeau is not going to intervene. The best hope for opponents would be to additionally unsettle the election process in hopes of deepening any damage to Ford. The goal is to blame Ford for creating a circus, so the more clowns brought to the tent the better.
THERE ARE LIMITS, DESPITE WHAT YOU MIGHT HEAR.